Corps members to be posted only where needed

Mr Omotayo Adewoye, the FCT Coordinator, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), on Thursday in Abuja, said the scheme had commenced posting of corps members for primary assignment only where needed to forestall their rejection by employers.

Adewoye disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, during the passing out and winding up of the 2015 Batch B stream I set of corps members.

He said that rejection of corps members by employers still remained a major challenge faced by the scheme, but assured that the service was devising new ways of addressing the problem.

The coordinator said that the scheme was therefore, ensuring that corps members were posted only to organisations where their skills were needed to ensure that they were not rejected.

“We have spoken with several organisations such as the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Assembly on the need to sensitise members of the public, private and government offices to request for and absolve corps members during the service year.

“Asides this, we are equally ensuring that we post corps members to areas where they are needed, we do not just post corps members anywhere or anyhow. This has helped us to check the spate of rejection of corps members,” Adewoye said.

He said that each batch of corps members were now divided into two streams due to inadequate facilities to cope with the population of corps members.

According to him, this will enable the management of the scheme to adequately cater for corps members enlisted from various institutions within and outside the country during the orientation course.

“For example, the Permanent Orientation Camp in Kubwa Village can only take about 2,000 corps members, but we have today over 7,000 corps members exiting from 2015 Batch B stream I and II.

“If we had brought 4,000 corps members here to do the orientation course, the camp would not have contained them that is why they were divided into two streams in the batch,” he said.

He lauded the enthusiasm of corps members to learn the skills acquisition and entrepreneurship training organised by the NYSC, saying that some corps members who passed through the training had become employers of labour.

Adewoye also commended the corps members who carried out several developmental projects in some rural communities within the FCT.

He said that some corps members provided boreholes to communities in the rural areas where they served.

“Some of these villages are facing a hard situation, sharing water with the animals; but these corps members have been able to identify this places and provided them with potable water,” he said.

He however noted that 65 corps members will be facing extension of service for various offences, while others will have to repeat the service year.